30 Days About Me - Day 4: What are you afraid of?

Day 4 :: What are you afraid of?

There are random things I'm afraid of, depending on circumstances.  But my biggest fear is being alone.  I hate being alone or left behind/out.  It's a terrible feeling and can often give me minor freakouts.

Another thing I'm afraid of is scorpions.  I almost stepped on a tiny, white baby one once in San Antonio when I was barefoot.  I've been terrified of them ever since.  When Mama Bear had one at one point, I couldn't even go into her room because it creeped me out so badly.

The last major fear that I'll mention right now is cockroaches.  I loathe cockroaches.  Like can't even look at them when they're in a glass-enclosed display in a zoo.  I blame the palmetto bugs in San Antonio for cementing that fear...  *shudders*


Project Master Post

30 Days About Me - Day 3: Your favorite quote

So first off, I have a valid reason for not posting yesterday.  I was away at the coast all day, then was exhausted when I got home.


Day 3 :: Your favorite quote


One of my current favorite quotes is below.  I found it recently via Facebook and fell in love with it.

When you write, you write out of your best self. Everything else drops away.
 -- Salman Rushdie

I'll be honest in that I actually have a lot of quotes that I like.  In fact, I have an entire spreadsheet of quotes. Somewhere between 3-5 thousand of them total.  I have a bit of a problem with collecting quotes.  *chuckles*  But I've also used some of them for story purposes, so that's a good thing, right?


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30 Days About Me - Day 2: 20 facts about you

Day 2 :: 20 facts about you

1. I'm technically the oldest of four.
2. I'm the oldest grandchild on both sides of my family.
3. At one time, I owned over 120 rats, due to a timing error in breeding two females and a former roommate rescuing another two pregnant females in the same timeframe.
4. I have lived in 5 states in the course of my lifetime.
5. I am very much in love with both of my nephews.
6. I love being a redhead, but don't always mind when my grey hair peaks through the dye.
7. I prefer contacts to glasses usually, but am incredibly light sensitive when I wear them.
8. At one point, I was in college full-time with 15-18 credits [depending on the semester], worked a full-time job and a part-time job, and was active in the theatre department.
9. During the above-mentioned time, I got free soda at both jobs, so was averaging 2 gallons of diet soda per day just to keep awake and get everything done.
10. It was during the above time [plus a few more years, for good measure] that I developed a nasty allergy to aspartame and its ilk.  I didn't find out until about 10 years later why I kept getting so many migraines.  Now, a single drop of the stuff touching my tongue will trigger off an instant nasty migraine.
11. Now I'm completely aspartame-free and can't even stomach diet sodas with Splenda because the "fake sugar" taste in cola-type drinks makes me gag.
12. I prefer guinea pigs as pets to ferrets, but would take ratties over both in a heartbeat.
13. I actually was able to breed pedigreed rats because I bred down four generations on the maternal side from a pet store feeder rat.
14. If you give me Ionian green olives, I will do pretty much anything for you.
15. I have eaten an olive stuffed with a habanero pepper and loved it.
16. I'm 44yo and still don't have my driver's license, nor do I expect I ever will.
17. When I die, I want to be cremated and turned into an artificial reef section in the Pacific Ocean.  If I can't do that, I want my ashes to be housing for a tree seed to be planted in the forests of the Pacific Northwest.
18. I've been working on refining the same novel concept for over twelve years now.  One day, it'll be cohesive enough to become a fully developed novel.
19. As a rule, I don't use recipes when I cook.  When I bake, I use recipes to be safe, but when I cook, it's all about intuition.
20. I am known as the "Spice Queen" or "Sauce Queen" in my house, because I always know how to spice everything or make sauces/gravies that rock, pretty much without fail.

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30 Days About Me - Day 1: Introduction and recent photo

Day 1 :: Introduction and recent photo

This would be me three years ago with our youngest cat, Elphie.  Trust me when I say that the only real difference in how I look now is that I'm a little fluffier and a little greyer at the temples.  Otherwise?  I'm the same me I was back in 2011.

My name is A. Sadie Timm, but you can call me Sadie.  That's the name I've chosen to use for my professional writing for a number of reasons that involve my family and the pull of my spirituality and my patron deities.

I'm 44 years old and am a transplanted Washingtonian of twelve years in September.  I currently live within a mile of one of the inlets in Puget Sound and love being so close to the water.  I take frequent trips to the coast to go clamming and/or crabbing during the year, depending on how the clamming season is going mainly.  I also crab and harvest oysters locally.

I live with BD, my queerplatonic partner of thirteen years; Otter, our housemate that's basically family; and our four furkids: Leo, Stasia, Gabe, and Elphie.  We have a backyard that is utterly overtaken by blackberry brambles, but also has some lovely fruit trees and bushes, if we could get to them.  But the local birds and wildlife love that our backyard is as wild as it is.

My first real memory of writing anything was when I was around 7 years old or so.  I've never looked back since.  I write fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and more than a little fanfiction under another pseudonym.  There's not a day that goes by when I'm not writing something.  If, for some reason, I do end up skipping a day [or more], I actually feel the withdrawal effects and they aren't pretty.

If there's anything else you'd like to know about me that won't be covered in this little meme project, please feel free to let me know.


Project Master Post

Project :: 30 Days About Me - Master Post

So I've heard that if you do something for 21 days straight, it becomes a habit.  I'm going to put that to the test by doing this 30 day meme about me.  Hopefully, I'll get back into the habit of daily posting here.  The bonus is that you'll get to know a little more about A. Sadie Timm in the process.

This is where I'll keep the master post for you to catch up on any of these days' posts that you may have missed.  That means I'll be posting the link to this page at the bottom of each day's post, too.

Let's have a little fun with this, shall we?

- Sadie

PS. If any of you should make connections to my other online presences, please don't make them public.  There is a reason I've chosen to keep my professional and fannish personas separate.  Thank you.

*****

Thirty Days About Me

1. Introduction and recent photo
2. 20 facts about you
3. Your favorite quote
4. What are you afraid of?
5. 10 songs you love right now
6. Your 5 senses right now
7. Your pet hates
8. What's in your handbag?
9. What are your worst habits?
10. What's your best physical feature?
11. List 15 of your favorite things
12. What's inside your fridge?
13. What is your earliest memory?
14. If you won the lottery...
15. Timeline of your day
16. What's at the top of your bucket list?
17. What is your most proud moment?
18. The meaning behind your blog name
19. What do you collect?
20. A difficult time in your life
21. Your 10 favorite foods
22. The best thing to happen this year
23. Your dream job
24. Your favorite childhood book
25. Your 5 favorite blogs
26. An old photo of you
27. Post your favorite recipe
28. What are you looking forward to?
29. Where have you travelled?
30. What's in your makeup bag?

Fiction Friday :: "Bit by the Bug"

So Day 6 of the 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises is as follows ::

Select a book on your shelf and pick two chapters at random. Take the first line of one chapter and the last line of the other chapter and write a short story (no more than 1000 words) using those as bookends to your story.

So the book I chose was The Spark: Igniting the Creative Fire That Lives Within Us All, created b Lyn Heward & written by John U. Bacon.  I took the first sentence of chapter 2 and the last sentence of chapter 4.  Then I decided to be crazy and, since the rules of the exercise didn't specify that I couldn't do it, swapped those two lines in my story.  It seemed to work out better.  And I decided to continue exploring Casey Darris and her background with this one.

This story was written 29-31 January 2014.  I'm not sure it'll be expanded upon or not.  And once again, it was based very loosely on situations in my own past.

Poem :: "It was a strange day"

So Day 5 of the 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises is as follows ::

Write a 20-line poem about a memorable moment in your life.

I actually chose to do this poem to help flesh out a new original character, based on something similar that happened in my own life.


"It was a strange day"

It was a strange day.
The day I lost all hope left.
No one understood,
Nor have they even tried since.
My whole world came crashing down.

Sometimes, it feels right,
This "out of touch with life" thing.
Like I am at peace.
Who in the hell feels like that
When their entire world dies?

She was the best part
Of being alive and all.
She made me feel loved.
Now she's gone and I'm alone,
Left with nothing but regrets.

Sometimes I feel her.
Usually it's a scent,
A touch, a soft laugh.
Fleeting and ephemeral,
Never to be real again.

A quick FYI...

I am several days behind on posting the 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises things that I've been doing.  I've been working on them in my paper journals, then working on transcribing them here.  I even got behind on doing the actual exercises on their assigned days.

So what I've decided to do is work on the various exercises and get myself caught up, then I'll work on getting them posted here.  I'd initially thought to backdate everything, but I've decided against that.  I'll just space them out, if I feel they're appropriate to post publically.  If I don't feel they're postable for public consumption yet, I'll at least do a post giving a basic description of what I attempted with the exercise in question.

I made a pact when I started this project that I would finish it by Imbolc, aka 2 February 2014.  I am behind, but planning on getting caught up over the next couple of days.  By spacing them out, no one feels like they're being flooded by my posts.

To Whom It May Concern -- An Open Letter to an Agent

So Day 4 of the 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises is as follows ::

Write a letter to an agent telling her how wonderful you are.

This was another one that actually gave me some issues in writing.  And not in the false modesty "Oh I can't do that!" kind of way either.  For me, and what I've always known about pitching oneself to an agent, you talk about your project as well as yourself, which can alter what you would say.  But I gave this a sporting chance...


 To Whom It May Concern --

You would be remiss to reject me as an author in your publishing stables.

I have been writing since I was seven years old, if not younger, and always had elaborate story worlds for my various characters.  I honed my craft with fanfiction, using the opportunity to work on introducing new characters into the established worlds, as well as taking established characters and plunking them down into new worlds.

This led to creating whole worlds of my own, like in my childhood, and populating them with new characters.

In addition to these fictional realms, I've delved extensively into poetry, oftentimes working with commonplace ideas in complex structures and vice versa.

I am working to expand my experience with creative nonfiction, as well, in an effort to be well-rounded and versatile.

Thank you.

Sadie

World Building Exercise

So Day 3 of the 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises is as follows ::

Write a setting based on the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen.

 A coastal beach that stretches unbroken for several miles to the south and approximately two miles to the north, where it terminates in a large outcropping of seismically and volcanically created rock, surrounded by a dense fog that obscures the summit and what lies to its direct north.  Anyone brave enough to climb the narrow, crumbling, water-slicked footholds and natural trails to the top is treated to a view like none other.  Once on the summit, the fog lifts to reveal a sun-dappled oasis of lush green grass overlooking a sparkling blue-green ocean to the west and north.  To the north, over the edge, one cans ee another seemingly endless stretch of pristine beach, dotted irregularly with pieces of driftwood.  Along the northeast of the point is a henge of obsidian and sunstone.  Fantastical creatures live here, including a gryphon that keeps a leviathan fed with seaweed and the bodies of those unworthy to step foot in this sacred space.

Character Study :: Casey Darris

So Day 2 of the 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises is as follows ::

Create a character with personality traits of someone you love, but the physical characteristics of someone you don’t care for.

At first, I wasn't sure I'd be able to do this.  In fact, I'll be honest and say that this particular exercise was a big part of the reason that I've been putting off doing these exercises in the first place.  So I kind of put it off most of the day.  Which turned out to be a good thing anyway, as I was fighting the auras associated with a potentially nasty migraine most of the day.  And then I realized how stupid I was being about my issues with this challenge and just sat down to start working out the basics of this character.

Possible Book Titles

So Day 1 of the 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises is as follows ::

Write 10 potential book titles of books you’d like to write.

 So the first ten titles that came to mind for me are below.

• Laikhostra
• Stranded in Seaweed
• Intricate Strands
• Surviving Sierra
• Set in Quicksand
• Somewhere Underrated
• Severed Lives
• Wisdom of the Heart
• Come Undone
• Where Have You Been Hiding?

Some of these titles have ideas percolating already, which is awesome.  Some may never have anything come of them.  And that's okay.  We'll see what happens.  For all I know, some of them may be used for fannish projects.  But I definitely feel better having a few ideas to kick around now.

And yes, the first title option is for something already set.  Perhaps I shouldn't have kept that one in the list, but it is for a book I'd like to finish writing.  The second is something that points toward my lesbian selkie romance idea.  The rest of them?  No idea.  And that's okay.  The idea was to write the titles now.  If stories come from these titles, that's fantastic.  If not, that's okay, too.

What's Up Wednesday :: 22 January 2014 Edition

So first things first.  It's been quite a while since I last posted anything here.  Which is just pathetic.  I could give a million and one excuses, but they don't really matter in the end.  All that matters is that I wasn't writing and should have been.  So let's just focus on moving forward from this point on, shall we?

It's What's Up Wednesday again!

What I'm Reading

People of the Owl -- This is actually a re-read, as I'm still slowly making my way through the entire series of books.

What I'm Writing

Mostly I'm doing a lot of RP over on Twitter again.

I've signed up for a few fannish challenges, which is nice to keep those muses happy.  But that won't get the money coming in for my writing, so I'm working on focusing a little more on the pro side of writing this year hopefully.

I started the 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises today, which should end on 2nd February, which just happens to be Imbolc.  In other words, the creativity sabbat that I celebrate.  Hopefully these exercises will niggle something loose for me to work on in the original fiction arena.

What Else I've Been Up To

This past weekend, I went clamming up by the Hood Canal Bridge.  We saw a pair of bald eagles there, as well as a couple of harbor seals while crossing the bridge.  And I ate a raw oyster right there on the beach after Otter shucked it for me.  [I'm still a wimp when it comes to shucking them.]  If all goes well, we'll be going back up this coming weekend for another round of clamming.  Freshly steamed clams are even tastier when you've dug them up yourself.

What Inspires Me Right Now

Hope and renewal are really big for me right now.

Abbey of the Arts did their Give Me a Word 2014: Fifth Annual Abbey Giveaway this past December. I happened across this concept when perusing one of the newsletters I get from the site, so thought I'd give this a shot for 2014.  I did the work and wasn't sure what my word would be.  And then it hit me.  This is what I wrote on their blog for the giveaway [which I didn't win].

"My word, apparently, is REVITALIZE.  I'd been down to renew, revitalize, and forgive, though creativity was bandied about for a bit, too.  But then I realized that renew, forgive, and even creativity all linked back to revitalize in ways that fit me.  I've fallen into several ruts over recent years -- emotionally, physically, creatively, and spiritually -- so it's time to revitalize everything."

And that whole idea of revitalizing is something I'm working on.  I'm in the process of making some changes now, but the big "push" toward this idea will be starting on Imbolc, when I begin a few other major projects, but more on those in a later post as we get closer to the date.

What’s up with you today?